Corporal Jose Villa (Joe V) Granillo was born 1 July 1918 in Nogales, Arizona to Vincente and Marina Villa Granillo. He had two brothers and two sisters. Both of his parents died in his younger years, his father in 1919 and his mother in 1940. He went to school in Sonora and Ray, Arizona where he completed two years of high school.

His draft registration shows he was six feet tall, 164 pounds and had brown hair and eyes and a light brown complexion. He enlisted March 2, 1942 in Fort MacArthur San Pedro, California. He was assigned service number 39024480. He later volunteered to be a paratrooper and was assigned to Company B, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne.

While he was with the 505th, he saw action in both Sicily and Italy before D-day.

“On 6 June 1944, the 505th Regimental Combat Team (RCT) was one of the few units to land largely within its designated drop zones in Normandy during the opening phase of Operation OVERLORD. This is can largely be attributed to the regiment’s experienced pathfinder teams and that 505th’s earlier combat drop experience over Sicily and Salerno. The 82d Airborne was ordered to capture the crossroads at Ste-Mère-Église, two bridgeheads over the Merderet River, and destroy two bridges over the Douve River. At 0300, the 505th landed to the east of the flooded Merderet, with nearly seventy-five percent of their serials landing in or near their DZs. The 505th had actually jumped ahead of their scheduled H-Hour, an action that would earn the regiment its motto “H-Minus.”

“On that epic day, since known simply and infamously by its otherwise innocuously coded designation D-Day, 82nd Airborne suffered more proportionate killed than any American division on a single day in history. And the dying came quickly.”

Corporal Joe Granillo was one of those brave men who was killed in action. For his service he received a Purple Heart.

Corporal Granillo’s body was returned to the United States for reburial at Saint Francis Cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona.

Sources:

Newspapers.com (Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona) 27 July 1944

Newspapers.com (Phoenix, Arizona) 12 April 1949

US, Find a Grave Index

US, Headstone Applications for Military Veterans,1925-1970

US, World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

US, World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

honorstates.org

US, Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945

US, Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007

1930 US Federal Census – Ray, Ray, Arizona

National Archives, aad.archives.gov

Armyhistory.org/the-505th-infantry-regiment

“The 505th Parachute Infanatry Regiment Roster Company-B-1st Battalion”

ww2-airborne-us/units/505/rosters/505_roster_b.html

“82nd Airborne’s Stunning 1-day KIA at Normandy,” realclearhistory.com/articles/2018/11/05

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

Joe V Granillo